


Ghosts That We Knew

by monkkeyslut



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Blood Drinking, F/M, Mild Gore, Mild Sexual Content, Minor Character Death, Past Character Death, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 04:27:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5402975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monkkeyslut/pseuds/monkkeyslut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maka Albarn, vampire, can’t remember when she was a human, or the first hundred years of her vampire life. It isn’t until she meets Soul Evans, a human with an odd sense of familiarity and knowledge about Maka’s life that she realizes she might have known him once upon a time. As they grow closer, the mysteries behind Soul's own life unravel, creating a rift between the two. When Maka's memories return and she realizes her mistakes, she races to find Soul. But can they reconcile both past and present issues, and work toward a new life together?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts That We Knew

**Author's Note:**

> IT IS DONE!  
> This is basically a re-write of my old vampire story, only it's very different. It was a challenge to write this, since I haven't written Soul/Maka in forever, but I really liked the outcome. I also want to thank Richa (swordbreaker on tumblr) for the awesome art she did for this fic. I'll link the art in the main post on tumblr when she posts it. 
> 
> Enjoy!

 

* * *

 

 

**PART I: A GIRL**

 

Maka Albarn doesn’t remember much from her time as a human. Nothing concrete, anyway.

It is mostly colours--she remembers the exact shade of the willow trees that surrounded her cottage, and the green of the moss that grew on the well. Sometimes, she remembers long red hair tickling her face as she hugged someone she can no longer remember.

Often she finds it irritating--seeing a colour but not being able to remember the thing or person that reminded her of it. Other times she will look at her friends--Tsubaki’s violet eyes (flowers growing outside a window) or Black Star’s stupid hair (the sky on a clear day, lying on your back in a large field)--and is comforted; some things leave and some things stay the same.

There are some days that remembering becomes an issue, however. Sometimes, when someone is messy with their feed and blood spills across the ground or the table or white sheets, Maka thinks of nameless bodies in a small room, bodies who she knows she knew, bodies who probably meant something to her, once upon a time.

But it was so long ago now that the hurt is only small and the pain of not being able to remember is minimal, and Maka just shakes her head and moves into another room.

So Maka has no idea why, after meeting Soul Evans, the pain seems to radiate through her mind and her chest like a fire consuming her.

* * *

 

If there is one thing Maka hates about the new world (not to be confused with the New World, which Maka hated with the entirety of her being and retreated to the East so she didn’t have to deal with bigoted idiots and senseless murder) it is school.

More specifically, college.

Back when she was young, all Maka had ever wished for was more to read, more things to learn about. She craved knowledge the way she now craves blood. And when schools first started becoming a Thing, she was so excited, enrolled in the first college she could and began to take classes. Only as the years have gone on, school has become less an environment to learn about math, sciences, arts, and language, and more of a place to learn about, well...oneself.

Which Maka is _fine with_ , really, but can’t the young adults try and find themselves at NYU? Why do they have to do it at the DCU?

(Maka totally sees the irony in kids coming to find themselves and live at a college in a place called _Death City._ She really does.)

Really, Maka doesn’t have a problem with the kids in general, it’s just the beginning of semester she hates. The Welcome Home festival and the blatant disregard the students have for other people’s property (how many times has Maka sent Black Star out to pick up plastic cups and bottles from the front yard?) are probably the worst, but a small part of her weeps whenever she spots one of the older buildings in the city TP-ed.

Kim likes to say that Maka is old and doesn’t know how to have fun anymore, let alone what it means to be a kid. But Kim is only three hundred years old and Maka has a good six hundred years on her, so she doesn’t really have a say in _anything._ However, Maka can see where she’s coming from, so she sometimes tries to not be as big a killjoy.

‘Tries’ is the important word here. _Succeeds_ is rarely used.

“Listen,” Maka says slowly, gums aching, teeth wanting to snap down and into this girl’s neck. “There is no reason for you to be loitering outside the library.”

The girl, brown hair teased almost ridiculously, pops her gum once, twice, a third time, all the while looking at Maka as if _she_ is the one doing something wrong here. Maka’s fists curl. “Um, _listen,_ ” the girl mimics slowly. “It’s Welcome Week. Everywhere is fair game.”

“You think so?” Maka snaps, and she knows her eyes darken here, enough that the girl starts to take notice that she’s not just mouthing off to a skinny woman who likes to read.

The girl shrinks in on herself a bit,spilling the red cup she’s carrying as her hands clench unbidden. In seconds, Maka is left alone as the girl hightails it away from her, joining a group of seven other girls as they pass her by, heading toward the campus.

Maka exhales slowly, allowing the stench of the girl’s fear leave her nose. Mortals are simultaneously too hard and not hard enough to scare these days. Their bravery and stupidity leave them mouthing off to the wrong person, and then when that person does something to show _their_ dominance, well...

The grin on her face is not wholly innocent.

A low whistle from her right has Maka turning sharply, green eyes assessing a new person.

She nearly bares her teeth at what she sees then; red eyes, white hair, a smirk that crawls up his face and has Maka’s throat screaming for just a taste--

“You really showed her, huh? What was she even doing?” the guys asks, his voice low and rough and gods, Maka knows what he is, knows the condition and has seen it a thousand times before, but she can’t help but feel that maybe...maybe she knows this man.

But no, he is a thousand years too young, and the smell of him is so human it clogs her nose. At least he doesn’t use that dreadful _Axe_ stuff that all the teenage humans these days think is acceptable. Black Star, the idiot, had even tried it himself. Maka had never seen Tsubaki so annoyed.

“Blocking the path into the library,” Maka answers, straightening her spine and gazing at the man. “And blabbering on to anyone who would listen about last night’s escapades.”

“So you told her to beat it?”

“There are a thousand places for idiots like her to bother other people.” She glares at the white-haired boy and begins walking toward the library, anxious to get away from those eyes. She can feel them following her as she makes her way up the steps, and only when the doors close does she let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

\--

By the time Maka finally sits down to read, she’s so angry about her reaction to the boy at the library that she decided to just go home. She needed to feed, she needed to relax, and she definitely needed to forget about how... _odd_ she felt when she met that boy’s eyes.

Maka is pushing a thousand years old. She is a _predator_ , and the highest on the food chain at that. There is absolutely no gods damned way she was _afraid_ of him, but she does know that he unsettled her. If Maka were younger, she might have hunted him down that night and slaughtered him like the lamb he is, but she’s grown up a lot in the last few hundred years . It’s far too hard to hide a body these days, anyway.

Slamming into the house, Maka ducks quickly as something flies toward her, embedding itself in the door behind her head.

She doesn’t get a chance to shout anything as a body falls from over the railing upstairs, and Tsubaki shouts in Japanese at Black Star, who pops his shoulder back into place and glares at her from the floor.

Maka turns slightly and her teeth snap down as she sees the plastic vibrator--now cracked and broken--imbedded in the door. Wonderful.

“Are you morons done?” Maka snaps, turning her glare on the two of them. Tsubaki’s face is red, matching her lingerie, while Black Star lounges on the ground, clad only in a pair of star-spangled boxer briefs.

They both look at her, one with an arched brow, the other with barely concealed embarrassment.

“The fuck crawled up your ass and died, Maka?” Black Star asks, jumping to his feet. He looks ridiculous, the love bites on his chest and neck just beginning to heal. Maka wishes the two idiots would just move out, but it’s a vampire thing that keeps them here. Unfortunately.

“Where is Kid?” Maka asks instead of answering Black Star, tossing her bag onto the table by the door. She can’t hear anyone else in the house, but that doesn’t mean much. Liz has taken to gardening, for whatever odd reason, and Patti is probably out terrorizing the new locals.

But Kid...

“He’s in the dungeon with Stein,” Tsubaki says, “and they asked not to be disturbed.”

“Wonderful,” Maka sighs, making her way to the kitchen to wait while Black Star leaps up the stairs, chasing after an annoyed Tsubaki.

She needs to drink something, eat something, kill something. There are few things Maka hates more than her day getting ruined.

Rifling through the deep freezer for a blood bag, Maka nearly weeps when she realizes that there isn’t any O negative left, only B positive, and she hates that shit but she can’t _not_ drink it, so she pulls it out and brings it to the counter, grabbing a wine glass from the cupboard so she can at least feel classy while she drinks second-rate, cold blood.

(Tsubaki has a thing about warm blood. It either makes her rabid or nauseous and Maka does not need that in her life right now.)

The first sip has Maka pulling the glass away from her mouth before her teeth can shatter it. The ache as they snap down is delightful and the blood on her tongue makes her feel better than she has all day. Gods, if that isn’t the most pathetic thing she’s ever thought.

The first glass goes quickly after that, and the second isn’t much longer, but she savors the third and final glass, swirling it around when Kid finally appears from the basement, looking harried.

“Maka,” he says, beelining for the wine rack. As the oldest of them all, Kid drinks more wine than blood these days. She’s seen him go weeks without blood and still function fine. She doesn’t understand why he doesn’t like blood--it’s just a part of them now, as much as anything else. It’s survival. “What can I do for you?”

“Nothing.” She smiles slightly, watching him frown when he realizes Liz finished off his oldest wine. He takes a few moments to decide what to drink.

“I heard you asking after me,” he murmurs, studying the label of a red. “I assumed something was wrong, considering how you slammed into the house.”

Maka finished her glass and places it carefully on the table, watching him. “I was just irritated. I find you soothing so I wanted to be around you for a few minutes. But I calmed myself down, so I’m good.”

“For someone who is a thousand years old,” Kid drawls, pouring himself a glass, “you’re awfully touchy. Why do you let the humans get to you?”

“They’re like ants,” Maka snaps, “nobody likes ants.”

This is proving to be less relaxing than she wanted. She _hates_ arguing with Kid, who is always terribly calm unless something is out of order or unsymmetrical. Honestly, sometimes Maka wants to tie her hair into pigtails the way she used to, leaving one hanging higher than the other just to watching him burst a blood vessel, to get him to say _something_.

Maka realizes that she has become cruel in her old age. Maybe it’s because she just doesn’t _care_ anymore.

The looks he gives her makes her want to crawl into her bed and sleep for a hundred years.

“Whatever,” Maka sighs, bringing her glass to the sink. “I’m over it. Goodnight.”

“It’s four in the afternoon.”

Maka ignores him.

* * *

 

It’s two-thirty seven and she’s been awake for hours.

After napping for way longer than she planned, Maka had woken up and hadn’t been able to fall back asleep. She figures that being a vampire should mean that she should be able to sleep whenever she wants, but no dice. It took her almost fifty years to stop trying to sleep all day.

Karl’s Konvenience (she’s asked, and it isn’t a Kardashian thing) is open twenty four hours a day, 363 days a year (only Christmas and Groundhog Day is he closed) and it is probably Maka’s third favorite place in the entire city.

The slushies at Karl’s taste like little raspberry clouds and there are always deals on snacks. Like, buy two Kit Kats and a bag of chips for five bucks. Maka loves it.

Unfortunately, so does every other university student.

She glares when a drunk frat guy stumbles past her, stepping on her foot. He keeps going, oblivious to everything but the Rockstar energy drink display as Maka tries to make her way toward the slushy machine. Just as she is about to grab for a cup, a voice asks, “Late night slushy run?”

Obviously, but Maka doesn’t answer the albino freak who is apparently stalking her. Instead she just tugs the cup free and holds it under the raspberry flavor, smiling slightly as her cup fills up with raspberry-cloudy goodness. Stalker doesn’t say anything as she pops a lid on  it and shoves two straws in, but he does fill up his own cup and follow her to the register.

Maka _might_ need to break her personal rule of Not Biting Humans (Unless They Attack You First) if Stalker isn’t going to leave her alone. She pays quickly for her slushy, not even bothering to throw in any chocolate or chips.

He follows her as she leaves, and tries to keep up with her as they walk, slurping his slushy loudly enough that Maka wants to shove it into his face. She doesn’t even know what to say to him, really. The last person who had tried to stalk her had been Giriko and--

Maka stops, an ache spreading through her head that is decidedly not from the slushy. Stalker stops with her, slushy lowering to his side as he stares at her, head tilted, “Are you alright, miss?”

She isn’t sure--her head hasn’t hurt this bad in as long as she can remember. Blood would probably make her feel better, but not from him--she won’t take his blood, not now when she can’t enjoy it or savor the look of terror on his face when he realizes just who he’s been stalking.

Unless--

“Witch,” Maka snarls at him, teeth snapping down. She moves quickly, dropping her cup and hauling him into an alley by the neck of his shirt, ignoring his shouting and scrambling.

How did she not realize? The splitting headache was a dead giveaway of course, but she should have known a human wouldn’t stalk her. She doesn’t exactly come off as friendly or welcoming, at least. Gods, she’s getting old if she didn’t realize it, and what if he’d incapacitated her?

She slams him in the brick building, bringing her face close to his as she hisses, “What do you want?”

The witch’s red eyes widen at her teeth, his heart racing a thousand miles a minute beneath her hand. He doesn’t smell like witch--no ozone scent or metallic tang--but that doesn’t mean he isn’t hiding it somehow. She’s not a werewolf, so her sense of smell is only slightly sharper than a human’s.

The witch still seems shocked, and the words that tumble out of his mouth are jumbled and hard to understand. “I-there, you and the _teeth_ , holy _fuck_ this is crazy, I’m going crazy, I just thought that--well, I don’t--”

“ _Spit it out!”_ Maka snaps, teeth close to his face.

“You looked familiar!” The witch gasps, “I’m not a witch, but what the fuck are you?”

His heart beat is still erratic, so she can’t tell if he’s lying, but she can see the fear in his eyes, the confusion. And witches are proud; they would never deny what they were, even if it cost them their life.

Maka steps back slowly, watches the way his shoulders slump and a shudder rips through him. She’ll have to compel him, make him forget that this ever happened, but-- “You said I looked familiar?”

Nodding, he looks at her before looking away, “Yeah, uh. Your eyes.”

Maka takes another step back, but doesn’t take her eyes off him. It’s not possible that she’s met him before. She’s too old and she would have remembered seeing an albino kid in the last twenty years, but...but that feeling when she’d first seen him, and then again when they were walking...she didn’t just get that pain in her head for no reason.

“You’re coming with me.”

* * *

 

“Maaaaaaaaaakaaaaa,” a voice sing-songs as she attempts to slip in the back door, the human’s arm clutched tight in her hand. Maka turns slowly, glaring at Liz as she takes a drag from her cigarette.

She has no idea why the blonde smokes. Obviously she can’t get cancer from them, but gods, it really isn’t that sexy these days, and why does she need to look sexy when she has the oldest vampire in the world at her every beck and call?

“What?” she snaps, daring Liz to say something.

A perfectly manicured eyebrow lifts, and the smoke chokes Maka. “Whatcha got there?”

Maka is about to tell Liz to mind her own business (and also beg her not to tell Kid) when the human says, “Those things’ll kill you, y’know.”

Liz snaps her teeth down, veins around her eyes bulging as she smiles, “Let ‘em try.”

The human holds a hand out, and Maka notices the small tremor in it that he doesn’t even try to hide. “Soul Evans. Can I snag one off you?”

Maka doesn’t let Liz recover from her shocked expression, and she definitely ignores the odd tightening in her chest at the sound of his name. What kind of stupid parents would name their kid _Soul?_

Dragging Soul through the back door, Maka snarls over her shoulder, “Keep your mouth _shut.”_

Liz’s cackle follows her through the house as she drags Soul up the stairs (as quietly as possible, even though the rest of the house probably wouldn’t even notice if an entire circus came through).

Her bedroom is messy; books and clothing litter every surface, but Maka doesn’t care as she swings Soul around, shoving him onto the bed. His surprised expression catches her eyes for a moment before it smooths out into a cool, aloof smile, and she cringes when he pats the bed beside him.

She really should have killed him. But--

“Start talking,” Maka bites out, kicking her shoes off and pacing around the room, looking for the journals she started keeping four hundred years ago, wondering if maybe she wrote something about him in one of those. Maybe he’s one of those souls that show up every few hundred years. Maka knows that Tsubaki’s brother is like that, and she’s pretty sure that Kilik has a few souls that tend to follow him around.

But no, Maka figures she would remember something like that. Unless, maybe, he’s from Before.

“I dunno,” Soul shrugs, voice uncomfortable as he picks at Maka’s bedspread. The pale green looks out of place with him on it. The last time she had a guy in here was--

Wow. Anyway.

“I’ve had these dreams all my life about a girl with green eyes, but I could never really picture her face or anything else about her. And like, I saw you the other day and I really was gonna tell you off for being a bitch to that girl because wow, uncool,  but then I saw your eyes and they just...reminded me of the dreams?” He sighs, rubbing his hands across his face. “That sounds stupid.”

Maka hasn’t had any dreams. In fact, she rarely dreams, or if she does, she doesn’t remember them. But he does seem familiar to her, somehow.

She leans against her bedpost, eyeing him skeptically. “So you’re not a witch?”

“No,” Soul says, and when she meets his eyes she can see how terrified he really is, “but what the fuck are you?”

He’s situated against the back headboard, legs bent under him like he’s preparing to jump off the bed and make a break for it. Which is incredibly possible, since Maka basically just kidnapped him. Too bad he wouldn’t get farther than the bedroom door.

_Gods,_ a voice in the back of her head says. _What is wrong with you?_

Maka sets her jaw, ignoring the voice and studying the boy. Nothing about him seems familiar, but she gets a heavy feeling in her chest every time he opens his stupid, serrated mouth.

“I’m a vampire,” Maka drawls eventually, stepping away from the bedpost and smirking at him when his face pales, looking sickly.

He quickly recovers, pushing his shaggy white hair off his forehead as he asks, shakily, “Are you gonna off me? Or like, eat me? I promise I don’t taste great.”

Maka sneers, crossing her arms over her chest. Humans are so stupid. If she were going to kill him, she would have done it in that alley. Why the hell would she bring him back here to do it? Why would she want the _mess?_

“I just want to know why you’re stalking me. It’s not cool.”

Soul blanches, then snaps, “I wasn’t _stalking you_!”

Raising her eyebrows incredulously, Maka scowls. “And you just happened to be at the same corner store as me? Unlikely, mister.”

“Mister?”

“Shut up.” She turns, and for the first time that night, Maka wonders what was in the blood she drank today that she felt compelled to bring this idiot back here. She could have just as easily interrogated him some other place else, in that alley or broke into one of the abandoned buildings downtown. God, how _stupid_ was she? Kid would kill her if he knew a human was here; was probably on his way down if Liz was feeling particularly heinous tonight and told him--

Soul shifts on the bed, and Maka is there in a second, teeth bared as she hisses, “What are you doing?” And he’s scrambling away, shoes dirtying her bed as he pushes against the headboard, eyes wide and pulse quickening, blood pumping fast and hot through him like--”Where do you think you’re going?”

“I was just _shifting!”_ Soul shouts, but Maka claps a hand over his mouth, tensing as she listens for any sound or movement throughout the house. All she hears is a muffled grunting in the basement, probably Black Star working out, and the low trill of a woman’s voice through speakers upstairs, coming from Patti’s room.

The attic is quiet, but it is always quiet. If Maka didn’t know Kid so well, she would be creeped out by how _other_ he is.

“You need to not shout,” Maka tells Soul, eyes narrowed and teeth snapping back into place. Soul watches, mystified. His pulse has calmed considerably, and his breath warms Maka’s palm almost uncomfortably. Pulling away, Maka wipes her hand off on her jeans and sighs. “I won’t kill you.”

“That’s a relief,” his tone is mocking, but Maka can hear the sigh that escapes him. She almost feels bad for being such a lunatic, but vampires have been hunted for centuries, and Maka didn’t really want to be killed with slushy staining her teeth. “Now can you explain some shit to me? Or can I leave?”

Frowning, Maka moves farther away from him, only to sit on the bed a few feet away. She can feel it every time he shifts on the bed, and can hear how his heartbeat slows to something akin normal. In hindsight, Maka now realizes how absolutely ridiculous she’s been tonight. Even if he _was_ stalking her and a witch or someone determined to kill her, Maka could kill him without even breaking a sweat, and if she needed help there were six other vampires at the ready to back her up.

With a groan, Maka realizes she’ll have to compel him to forget everything that happened tonight. Unless, of course, he keeps seeing her and getting those weird little ‘I remember you vibes’ again, thus starting the whole cycle back up.

God, she fucked up.

Soul moves slowly, snapping his fingers in her face. Maka growls, turning to snap at him, but stops short. Despite the slightly worried look on his face, Maka catches a glimpse of a smirk. He also doesn’t reek of fear any more, which is a relief and actually...well Maka thinks maybe he _is_ interested in vampirism, in what she is.

“You really want to know?” she asks, a little hesitantly.

Soul’s eyes are bright, and when he nods, Maka begins.

* * *

 

Maka doesn’t know when she started relating colours to things--maybe it’s because that is all she really remembers from Before, or maybe it’s just a stupid game she plays with herself, bored after so long--but she finds herself doing it more, now that she knows Soul.

This is the red of the sky as dawn, this is the red of Soul’s Music History textbook. This is the red of Soul Evan’s eyes when he is exhausted.

Maka blinks, eyes gritty from being up all night alongside him, reading while he studied and made her quiz him. She had no idea that being a music major is so difficult, but apparently it is.

Honestly, she has no idea why she’s here. It’s been a little over a month since she attacked and interrogated Soul, and he’s stuck around, even after Maka explained about vampires and other things that went bump in the night, basically telling him that every monster he’s ever imagined is actually real, and that there are things out there that would gladly kill him.

She was a little more subtle than that, but Soul hadn’t even really seemed phased by any of it; in fact, Maka was almost distressed with how well he took it. Mortals weren’t usually so easy going when they found out about the world of Other and all that it entailed, but Soul...

Maka is still a little wary about it, still keeps one eye on him at all time, just in case he really is a witch, but the last month has consisted of them eating, drinking slushies, and Soul bitching about school and his parents.

All together, it hasn’t _totally_ sucked. Soul is good enough company, and his life has obviously changed for the better since Maka has been in it, especially since she showed him how to really take full advantage of all the slushy flavours and where in the library is best for studying. She decidedly does not think about the curl in her stomach whenever she sees him, and how after a half hour around him, the curl eases into something soft, manageable, almost pleasant.

The early morning light begins to slip through the windows, warming Maka’s skin almost uncomfortably. It always takes her a while after the sun rises to be able to bear being in it without her skin feeling like it’s peeling off. She shifts her chair out of the direction of the sunlight, earning an odd look from Soul as he glances up from his notes, eyes blearily.

“We need coffee,” he tells her, like Maka will get up and get it for him. She won’t, but she supposes he had to ask. Maka nods her head to the staircase that leads down into the main part of the lobby where a coffee and donut kiosk sits, and Soul glares.

“I’m the one actually doing something,” he snaps, voice raspy from a night of barely speaking. “You’ve just been playing on your phone.”

“I’m on level 476 on Candy Crush,” Maka smiles cheerily. “I’m beating my housemate by forty.”

Soul stares at her, red eyes brighter in the early morning light, and he sighs. “Are all vampires this lazy?”

Maka pouts at him, pointing with the toe of her flats toward the stairs. “Life’s hard, human.”

* * *

 

She wakes up one night, a week or two later, with a sinking feeling in her stomach and a splitting headache. If she concentrates, she can see the green of a meadow, the orange of a flame, the black of a spider--

Maka rolls over, gives her pillows a few good whacks, and tries to fall back to sleep.

* * *

 

“Listen,” Maka says slowly, hands held up in a placating gesture. “We need to break up.”

Soul lifts his eyes to her, frowning as he eats his fries. A book sits open beside him, highlighted almost entirely. “We’re not dating.”

Maka shifts, the brim of her floppy hat obstructing her view of Soul for a moment before she twists it on her head, glaring at him. “I mean that we need to stop hanging out together.”

Unamused red eyes stare back at her. As if she is being ridiculous, which she isn’t. Maka is the one here with years of knowledge and experience, and if she’s learned anything over the past hundred years, it’s that humans suck, especially when they go and die on you. So, after a month and a half of being tentative friends with Soul and sneaking around behind her housemates’ backs, Maka figures it’s only right to end it before Soul really gets invested.

“It’s bad for the soul,” Maka tells him, sipping carefully from her lemonade. “And it’s bad for _you_ , Soul.”

Now he looks bored, turning back to his book as he slathers a fry with ketchup. “It’s actually been nice,” he mutters after a few moments of Maka’s staring. “It keeps my mind off of stuff.”

Glowering, Maka snaps, “Well thanks, but--”

“If you’re just going to pull an Edward Cullen about us being friends, you can just--”

“How _dare you--”_

“Maka,” a voice says behind her, cheery with an undertone of curiosity, “how odd seeing you here.”

She just catches the barest hint of raised eyebrows from Soul before she whips around, offering probably the fakest smile she has ever made to Tsubaki, who stands with one hand shielding her eyes from the sun, and the other clenched tight around three grocery bags.

When Maka continues to stare, Tsubaki tilts her head, “And this is?”

“Soul Evans,” Soul chokes out behind Maka, much to her undying annoyance. “Miss. Pleased to uh, it’s--hey. Hi.”

Tsubaki’s smile dims a bit, confusion seeping into her pretty face. “Hello. I’m Tsubaki, Maka’s roommate.”

“Housemate,” Maka corrects her, half turning to Soul, but not willing to turn her back on the other vampire. Tsubaki seems nice, but Maka has seen her when there was only one blood bag left. Probably the most ruthless person Maka knows. “We don’t share a room.”

“I know,” Soul says slowly. “I’ve been in your room.”

Maka pales, and Tsubaki’s quick intake of breath tells Maka all she needs to know about how the rest of this decade will play out. Once Black Star knows, the world will. “Not that way, Tsu--”

“Maka,” Tsubaki’s eyes are glittering, her grin practically feral. “You should have told me!”

“Nothing to tell,” Maka shrugs, reaching blindly for her drink, which Soul gently nudges toward her hand, lest she spill it all over his things. “Honest.”

“Well,” Soul reclines in his chair, looking more than a little mischievous. “You _did_ try to break up with me, just now.”

“I was joking--”

“So you don’t want to break up?” Soul asks, hand over his chest and eyes wide. Maka can practically taste the mischief rolling off him, wonders if Tsubaki can too. “Good. I don’t think my grades could take it.”

Tsubaki seems to be almost having a fit behind Maka. “I can’t believe you haven’t brought him around, Maka!” She chastises, then tilts her head towards Soul. “We don’t bite, honest.”

Soul stiffens momentarily, which Tsubaki catches, because she catches everything, but then just nods and grins an effortless grin, eyes crinkling in the corners.

_Oh,_ Maka thinks a little dazed, _this is the red of Soul’s happiness._

* * *

 

“Family meeting,” Liz says, hooking one arm between Maka’s while Patti comes up on her other side, effectively blocking her in.

Tsubaki had left not long after meeting Soul, and although he had tried to hide it, Maka knew that Tsubaki caught that subtle shift in Soul when she mentioned biting. There was no way she hadn’t, and now Maka would have to deal with that because she was the idiot who outed herself to a human and was stupid enough to keep him in the know.

She doesn’t struggle as Liz and Patti lead her to the large sitting room at the front of the house, near the door that is rarely used and the grand piano that is never used. Kid had a thing about old shit, liked to decorate the house like he was actually over a millennium old. While everyone else had tried to modernize the place, he had stubbornly refused to allow anyone a chance to add even a TV to the room.

Now, as she enters the room, she nearly groans at the sight of the entire house sitting around a large, unlit fireplace. Black Star and Tsubaki, Kid, Kim, Ox and Harvar, and Kilik and Jacqueline all turn to look at her as she enters with the Thompsons, some looking happy, while others look grim.

Maka thinks that it should really only be Kid reprimanding her, since he’s the only one who is ever actually _always here_. Black Star and Tsubaki had been present at the house for close to a decade now, but Kim, Ox, Harvar, Kilik and Jacquline always seemed to be off doing their thing.

She’s really glad that they’ve all come home to witness her annihilation at the hands of her neurotic, overprotective friend.

Kid stands from his seat in a large, wingback chair, hands clasped behind his back as Liz and Patti drop Maka’s arms and she stumbles forward a bit.

“Maka,” Kid begins a little uncertainly, golden eyes hard on her. “I hear you have a boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Maka snaps, glowering at Tsubaki, who won’t meet her eyes. “He’s a friend. And yes, we’re hanging out. Because that’s _allowed.”_

Kid sighs, like a long suffering parent whose child has just broken the last straw. Maka wants to laugh, because really? She’s been the best behaved in this entire family; hell, a hundred years ago Black Star went on a rampage when Tsubaki was attacked and almost killed by hunters, killing nearly two hundred people. Three hundred years ago, when Kim first turned, she’d killed her entire village.

And that’s not even touching on the subject of Liz and Patti.

“We’re just concerned, Maka,” Tsubaki pipes up from the couch, finally meeting her eyes. “You...this is your first human. We just want to be sure that you know what you’re in for.”

A pang in her head has Maka looking away, focusing on the wall. Behind her closed eyes, her head pounds like there is an entire line dance happening in there, and she gets flashes of colour--charcoal grey of a storming sky, the silver of a spider’s web, red, red, red--

When she blinks her eyes open, Kim is telling Maka of a story about a girl she’d known a long time ago, but Maka doesn’t really care. She knows what she’s doing, and she won’t get in over her head about this. She isn’t a damn idiot.

“I’m fine,” she interrupt, smile tight. “And if it blows back up in my face, I give you all permission to tell me ‘I told you so’.”

She turns on her heel and marches up the stairs, ignoring the tight feeling in her gut, and the heat of Black Star’s gaze as it follows her up.

* * *

 

A knock on her door a few hours later draws Maka from her book, and the smell of blood has her practically salivating as she opens the door.

Black Star has a Redbull in hand, but she can smell the blood mixed into it, and in his other hand is just a dark glass of the stuff, warm and delicious. Maka takes the small peace offering warily, eyeing Black Star as he slips into her room, making himself comfortable across her bed. Maka moves to sit on the window bench, the curtains drawn tight to block the fading sunlight.

After a few moments of silence, and half of the glass drained, Maka snaps, “What do you want?”

He tilts his head a little, looking at her with his odd blue-green eyes. Sometimes Maka forgets that he’s a murderer, an assassin. When he’s swinging from the banisters, or talking about Tsubaki like she’s some goddess, it’s easy to forget. But moments like this, where he is still and calm, Maka remembers seeing him blood stained and savage, pupils blown wide with bloodlust.

But that was a long time ago.

“You’re gonna be alright?” he asks eventually, eyes narrowed at her. “Don’t let this human fuck with you.”

“I won’t,” Maka says, pushing the curtains open a bit, peering into the street before the house. “I’m not an idiot, and I’m not young. I know better.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “You don’t know better because you’ve never experienced it. And I haven’t really either, but look at Kid and the Thompsons, or Kim and Jacqueline. They could have gone really, really bad but I just want you to understand that we’re just trying to look out for you.”

Maka stares at him for a moment, then rolls her eyes. “Got it. You can stop the whole serious thing now.”

“Goooooood,” Black Star says, rolling to his feet. He’s all loose-limbed and cheerful again. “That was awful. I don’t know why I let Tsubaki talk me into shit like that.”

“Good sex?” Maka reminds him.

A grin splits his face, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Oh. Right. Welp,” he makes his way to the door, crushing the can as he goes. “Have a nice night. Don’t let the humans bite.”

Maka snorts and finishes her glass of blood, leaning back against the wall.

* * *

 

She doesn’t know much about Soul’s life, really. His parents are still together, he has a brother, he plays piano and his brother plays violin. He’s only had one girlfriend in high school, and he didn’t want to go to school for music but he didn’t know what else he would do, and it was better than staying at home with his parents, who live an hour away.

He doesn’t talk about them much, but when he does, it is never nice.

“--called me and made me feel like an asshole because I haven’t been home, meanwhile they’ve set up meetings for me so I can double major in business _and_ music, like who the fuck does that shit, who the fuck controls their kids lives after high school? These people are ridiculous, honestly...”

He trails off when Maka’s straw makes a slurping noise against the bottom of her cup. She’s almost glad that he’s stopped, because she was really concerned that he might have paced a hole in her floor.

He glares at her as she shakes her slushy cup, willing it to melt a little bit more so she’s not sucking up ice. Walking over to the bed, Soul drops down heavily and falls back against the pillows and blankets, glaring at her the whole time. “Can you please sympathize with me?” he asks.

“I can’t remember if I even had parents,” Maka replies, placing her cup on the nightstand beside her bed. “So no.”

Soul’s glare withers, and something passes over his face, but it’s gone before Maka can think to ask what it is.

“Why don’t you tell them to leave you alone, if they bother you so much?”

Soul exhales sharply, turning on his side so he can see her better. “It’s...more complicated.”

“Their money?”

“No,” Soul murmurs, picking at a loose thread in her duvet. “I don’t care about the money. It’s nice, and it’s useful, but...I never wanted to depend on them for money, so I have a bunch saved up from birthdays and Christmas over the years, plus I have my trust fund, but. It’s more than that.”

When he doesn’t say anything more, Maka mimics his position, her hand close to his on the blanket. He watches it, quiet and contemplative, before he whispers, “I don’t want to talk about them.”

Maka shrugs. “You don’t have to.”

His fingers inch forward a bit, and hers do as well. When they touch, Maka feels a tingle down her spine, feels breathless and happy and--

“I like being around you,” he confesses, gripping her fingers a little tighter. “I feel...lighter.”

Maka knows. Maka feels the same, but the words are stuck in her throat. Instead, she smiles and squeezes his fingers, toes curling at the slow, lazy smile that stretches over his face.

She is so screwed.

* * *

 

Things get weird after that.

Well not weird, really, just different. _Soul_ is different with her, fingers always brushing hers when they walk, or his hand on the small of her back when the place they are in is too crowded. Maybe it’s the look in his eyes when he doesn’t think she’s looking; heavy and a little sad and very, very hot.

She still gets that familiar zing down her spine when she first catches sight of him, like she recognizes him from forever ago. Maka hasn’t had the courage to ask him if he gets that same feeling, yet.

It’s odd, being around a human so much. Maka had always been the one who was against humans, who didn’t like them or need them beyond the basics. She didn’t think it was wise to befriend or love a human, because they died so easily. Fragile, passionate little things that didn’t know when to quit. It made her sick whenever one of her friends would fall for one, broke her heart when they lost them or left them.

It had always been her number one rule to _not_ let humans get under her skin, or, well. Under her at all. She was perfectly happy with her existence, didn’t need anyone right now. Not when she had Kid and the Thompsons, Black Star and Tsubaki.

But just because she doesn’t need anyone, doesn’t mean she doesn’t _want_ someone.

* * *

 

Soul kisses her on a Monday, and it is simultaneously the most underwhelming and overwhelming kiss she has ever gotten.

They’re sitting at a table at Death Bucks, Maka nursing her tea while Soul gulps down his coffee, black and acrid in her nose. They’ve been talking about school and some of the people Soul’s met when his phone rang once, twice, three times before he decided to bite the bullet and answer it.

His face went from annoyed, to worried, to annoyed once again as he ended the call, reaching for his backpack. “I gotta head out. Family shit.”

“Sure,” Maka shrugs. It’s her turn to cook that night anyway, so she may as well get a head start on it. “I’ll see you later?”

“Maybe,” Soul shrugs, leaning down to peck her on the lips. “I’ll text you.”

As he walks away, Maka wishes she could see his face. She’s surely red, her back ramrod straight and her stomach doing odd, curling things. How could he-- _why did he_ just kiss her? Like it was nothing? Maybe he hadn’t meant to do it, Maka tells herself, and decides that _yes_ that was it.

Only it _keeps happening._ When he leaves, when they meet up, always with the kissing and Maka doesn’t know what to _do_ or what to say so she just lets it happen.

Like now, Maka is lounging on his bed in his dorm, a cute little place that houses only one student and has a relatively clean bathroom. Clothing is strewn about his bedroom floor, and take-out cartons litter the kitchen counter, but it’s nice enough.

He’s rushing around, late for something--band practice maybe--snatching up things as he goes. Maka watches idly, eyes stinging from exhaustion, the way they always do after she’s fed. The blood she had before she came left her warm and lethargic, and the book she’d brought to read while Soul watched movies for his film class sits precariously on the crates stacked beside his bed.

Maka watches him move, slinging his leather jacket on, before he turns to the bed, leaning down to press a quick, warm kiss against her mouth, only to pull away seconds later, book under his arm as he moves toward the door. He waves a hand over his shoulder, “You can stay as late as you want, I’ll be back in a few hours!”

The door’s click is oddly final, and Maka, from her place against the pillows, burns scarlet.

* * *

 

She doesn’t know when she fell asleep, only that it’s been long enough that the sky outside is inky black, and she is in Soul’s bed, the smell of him wrapped around her like a cocoon. Honestly, Maka isn’t even sure what woke her, but she’d like to tell it to fuck off.

Actually, she should be getting up anyway. She doesn’t need Soul coming home to her in his bed, and yet it’s so comfy (for a dorm bed) and the blankets are soft and worn...she might actually just stay here a little bit longer.

Maka bites back a yelp when the bed dips behind her, and the smell of Soul is almost overwhelming as he begins to settle in beside her, lifting the blankets to get comfortable. His cold feet brush against her calves, and Maka curls her legs up, thus pushing herself back into Soul.

This is ridiculous.

“Is...” Soul begins, arm tentatively resting over her. “Is this alright?”

Maka stares at the wall, and this feels both right and familiar, like falling into a good dream you’ve had a million times, remembering it for a few short hours before something else takes its place. The warmth of Soul, the subtle press of his body to hers and his breath ghosting against her neck...

She doesn’t answer him, just reaches up and pulls his hand down so they’re spooning, happy and warm.

* * *

 

He asks her once, “Would you change me into a vampire?”

Maka had been cleaning up her room, arms laden with sweaters and pants that has missed the laundry basket every time she threw them, and she stopped with her back to him.

Being a vampire has been the best and worst thing that could have ever happened to her. And lately, there are more good days than bad days, but Maka remembers when there was just bad days, just days where she thought she would never stop hating herself and Kid and the entire world. The first few hundred years of being a vampire were years that she thought she would never survive.

“No,” Maka told him, finally. And she didn’t know _why_ she said no, just that she did, and the look on his face after didn’t speak of disappointment, just confusion.

* * *

 

Things change.

The semester nears its end, and Soul gets more stressed with family obligations and school. Maka can see that it’s taking a toll on him, but she also knows that she’s been helping him. They’ve been helping each other, really, and it’s nice having someone to kiss and cuddle for once.

They’re not dating, but they might as well be.

Actually, things have progressed to the point that they’re actually...having sex. And it’s not _weird_ even though Maka worried and agonized over the fact that it would be. In fact, Soul makes it a point to not be weird, purposefully ignoring her awkwardness and draping himself across her after, soft and smiling and too puppy like for Maka’s taste, but it helps.

One such night, Soul sits at the end of the bed, looking at something while Maka flips through one of his textbooks, brows furrowing at the odd music theories. She doesn’t understand how he can read this crap, there isn’t any substance, and how does he read those weird little symbols?

“Can your blood heal diseases?” Soul asks, not looking at her.

Maka’s hand pauses as she goes to turn a page in the book, and the flooding realization of what this is, what he’s doing here, has her blinking spots from her eyes.

It is all so clear, and she does not even consider the fact that she is jumping to conclusions, because there is absolutely no way that he asks about becoming a vampire and about vampire blood in the same few weeks.

Turning slowly, Maka takes in the hunch of Soul’s shoulders, can still see him asking her to make him a vampire, the stubborn tilt to his jaw, the straightness of his shoulders and the way his throat bobbed. Now he seems folded in on himself, making himself seems as small as possible.

“Why?”

Soul swallows thickly. “It was just a thought. You could be helping a lot of people, you know--”

“No,” Maka cuts him off, voice like ice. “Why go through this whole charade? Why use me like this? Why not go find some other vampire and get them to feed you their blood?”

His face pales, but his voice is stronger when he seethes, “I _want_ to be a vampire! I’m just--just asking a goddamn question, Maka. And don’t act like you haven’t been using _me_ too. I see the way you look at me sometimes, like you’re looking right through me.”

If she could blush, Maka’s cheeks would be on fire. Instead, her teeth snap down in her anger, nicking her bottom lip. “You don’t know a damn thing.” But maybe he does. He looks familiar, like someone she knew once and she knows that it was what attracted her to him in the first place. What if that _is_ the only reason she’s stuck around?

“I know enough,” Soul says slowly, carefully, “to understand that I’m not the person you would choose to spend the rest of your life with, Maka. You just don’t want to be alone.”

“And who are you hoping to save, huh? Some pretty little college girl who told you she liked you once and now you can’t stop thinking about her? What’s her problem, alcohol poisoning? Don’t give me your fucking bullshit, Soul.”

Soul sits up straighter, knuckles white. His voice, when he speaks, is detached. “It’s my brother.”

That explains the family drama, the excuses and the late nights and how tired he always looks. How could she have not known that? How could Maka have been his friend this long but never thought to ask why he was always bitching about his parents?

She had thought that he wanted to become a vampire to escape them; escape their hold on him, their expectations weighing him down and smothering him. But it hadn’t been that at all. He had used her, but he thought it was for good reason.

It wasn’t for good reason. Maybe if he had asked outright. Maybe if he had told her. But Soul had lied time and time again, using her for her blood. The betrayal sat heavily in her chest, choking and thick until she thought she might vomit. Maka stood, standing opposite him across the bed.

“And what if I didn’t--what if I hadn’t been your friend?” Maka asks, voice tight, hands curled into fists at her side. All she wants to do it lunge forward, kill him, break his heart just as soundly as he did hers but--no. She doesn’t want that, doesn’t want to admit that he did it.

Soul looks weary, pleading. “It wasn’t even supposed to be you.”

Everything feels cold, and she can see herself in the mirror behind him. _This is the green of your eyes when you’re heartbroken._ “What do you mean, it wasn’t supposed to be _me?”_

“This...this woman I knew, Blair...she said that vampire blood might be able to help my brother. He’s sick, Maka. Bone cancer. And they can’t _do_ anything, they can’t remove it or give him new bones; he’s dying and there is nothing to do but wait. But Blair found me the one night--she used to work at a scummy restaurant called Chupacabra’s back home and she said that she was a witch or something, that vampire blood could heal mortal injuries--”

“Injuries,” Maka interrupts blankly, “not diseases. Not death. I feed your brother blood? He dies that much quicker. Goes mad with the pain, tries to kill himself only to find that he can’t, that the cancer will eat away at him just the same as it did before, only worse.”

“--she said that most witches knew where big vamp covens were located, who lived in them.” His eyes look glassy, crazed almost as he continues, voice barely a whisper but fast as a whip. “She said that the Nevada coven had one of the oldest vamps in the world, but he was a little bit mad, and I thought maybe him, but then I was reading the files she had on you guys and I realized Tsubaki would be the easiest--she was marked down as the nicest, the easiest way in, but then I saw _you_ that day on the street and you looked so familiar Maka, so damn familiar and I thought--I thought if I could just get in with you, if I could get your blood, but then I...I--”

“Get out,” Maka whispers, throat thick with something she doesn’t want to acknowledge. Soul’s face falls, the devastation clear and he raises his hands in a placating gesture.

Maka feels her teeth snap down, her eyes stinging with unshed tears, and she doesn’t speak any louder than her normal voice, but there is only venom in it, only glass waiting to cut Soul to pieces, as she hisses, “Don’t you _ever_ come near me or my kind again.”

He grabs his things, gives her one last pleading look, and then he is gone.

* * *

 

Maka is a sad, pathetic excuse for a vampire, and as she sits moping on the top of the stairs leading down into Stein’s _dungeon,_ she wonders if he knows how to remove her feelings. It’s doubtful, but Maka knows he would try his best.

The door a few steps behind her opens, and Liz slips down the stairs smoothly, perching herself along the railing as she pulls out a cigarette. If Maka inhales deeply enough, she can smell the faint scent of cigarettes in the long stairwell, probably where Liz goes to smoke when it’s particularly disgusting outside.

They sit in silence for a few long moments, only the sound of Liz’s cigarette burning between them.

It has been a month and twelve days since she told Soul to leave. She hasn’t seen him since, at least not in person, and if she’s been following him, who cares? She needs to make sure he doesn’t try to trick another vampire, or--or--

Doesn't matter, Maka knows. She can do whatever the fuck she wants and if Liz wants to come and call her pathetic that’s _fine_ because Maka is better than that and she knows that she’s not... _that_ pathetic.

She’s about to snap at Liz to get it over with when the girl exhales a steady stream of smoke, then rasps, “Sorry ‘bout your boy.”

Tsubaki had hugged her, Black Star had threatened to kill him, Stein had offered to dissect him, and Patti had been ready to scare the life out of him, but nobody had said that they were sorry, and Maka finds her eyes watering, probably from the smoke, as she looks away from Liz and down the stairs, where only the faintest glow illuminates the bottom.

“It’s my fault,” Maka mutters, pulling her knees to her chest. The cool stone floor beneath her doesn’t hurt, but they are cold and it seeps into her, settling in her bones in a way that feels a lot less like the stairs fault and a lot like her own. “I let him in; everyone warned me, but I still did it.”

“I don’t know a whole lot about why you guys broke up,” Liz tells her, the cherry of her cigarette ruby bright in the dimness. “But I know it had to do with his brother, and as someone who has a sister, as someone who once had to dig through dumpsters and kill to feed her, I get it. I would have done anything to save Patti. I still would.”

“He lied to me,” Maka snaps, but it sounds weak, watery beside Liz’s bold statement. “I gave him--I let him in and he lied to me.”

“But he fell for you, too. Couldn’ta done that if he hated you.”

Maka’s jaw clenches, but Liz isn’t wrong.

The blonde shrugs, crushing her cigarette into her palm and dropping its remains on the steps, already turning around to go upstairs.

“Thanks,” Maka tells her, before the girl opens the door. “I appreciate it.”

Liz doesn’t reply, just pushes through the door and leaves Maka alone in her misery.

* * *

 

“I need to tell you something.”

Maka looks at Kid, exhausted and miserable but not willing to show it. She forces a smile, then nods to the stool beside her. The house is blessedly quiet, Tsubaki and Black Star gone on some retreat, while Liz and Patti pampered themselves at the spa, as per usual of the fifth of every month. The others are gone or hiding in their rooms, the bright winter day almost unbearable.

“What’s up?” Maka asks, turning back to her smoothie. Blood, strawberries, and oranges. Tastes like frothy heaven.

Kid looks jumpy, but also old. It’s like his age has caught up to him, aging him a millennium. Maka watches warily as he rests his hands palm-down on the table top, slow like she might scare.

“Soul Evans,” Kid begins, ignoring the way Maka freezes, shoulders bunching up at the sound of his name. “Knows you. And you know him. Or, really, your souls know each other.”

Maka frowns, heart beating quickly in her chest. She almost wishes that she were like other vampires--blood still, heart cold; it would help ease the anxiety budding in her breast, or calm the racing of her pulse. “What do you mean?” She asks, but she understands a bit; he has always been familiar to her, and she has always known that there was something else there...

Kid looks at her then, gold eyes sad. “Fated souls will find each other in every lifetime, overcome every obstacle, even if it takes a million years.”

“How--” Maka swallows thickly, her smoothie no longer appetizing. “How do you--what are you _talking_ about?”

His hand rises, resting against her cheek. He breathes, “Remember.”

She blinks, and a shooting pain lances through her skull, pushing a scream from her throat as images blur her vision--Soul; a man with red hair-- _papa--_ a woman with a spider’s smile and black, black hair; a village on fire; a meadow with small purple flowers; the sharp bite of teeth in her neck; the thick, cloying taste of blood in her throat; her teeth on someone’s neck; a voice whispering, _I love you._

And darkness, only pierced by gold.

* * *

 

**PART II: A BOY**

This was Wes’ plan: go to school and get a degree in Music and Business; find a girl who was nice and gorgeous; become even more famous than he already was; die happy.

Soul doesn’t think that was really all of the list. It was just the rough one his brother had given him as Soul sat beside his bed, thumbing through his phone to look at the last text he sent Maka. It was a pathetic _i’m sorry_ and he hadn’t gotten a reply, but he didn’t think he would.

He had lied, betrayed her, and he didn’t have an excuse. Wes was dying, sure, but to Maka, people died every day. Humans were something that came and went and he was no different.

“Are you listening?” Wes asks quietly, one eyebrow raised skeptically, mouth twitching up at Soul’s dumb expression.

“No,” Soul tells him, locking his phone and dropping it onto the bed. “Continue.”

“As I was saying,” Wes rasps, turning back to the TV, “Kim had a sex tape, and it’s a big part of why she’s relevant. But they do good stuff, too. They promote charities and try to do decent things, but most people only see what magazine’s say about them. To be honest, my biggest regret will probably be not meeting Kourtney in real life.”

Soul watches his brother wax poetic about the Kardashians. Most people would be annoyed after watching all ten seasons, but not Wes. If anything, he was even more infatuated with them, for some god awful reason.

It’s one of his better days; he’s awake enough that he can string together sentences that make sense, even if they are quiet and sometimes trail off without any warning. Soul counts himself lucky that he still gets this, but he also, guilty, traitorously, wishes it would happen already.

No warning would be better than letting him waste away. Better than tricking themselves into thinking that Wes could pull through. If Wes dies, then they can just...let go. Move on. Mourn and miss him but get on with their lives. Maybe Soul will continue his degree in music, maybe double major in business too. Maybe he’ll meet a nice girl (one who isn’t a vampire, one who isn’t breathtakingly familiar, one he doesn’t see in his dreams, young and light and _warm_ in a way that she isn’t now) and he’ll die happy.

Maybe Soul will write Wes a song, a eulogy, a good-bye.

Wes turns to look at him with fever-bright eyes, and Soul can’t muster up a smile.

This is Wes’ plan now: don’t die on a holiday, don’t die on a birthday, but die all the same.

* * *

 

Soul wonders, _does it hurt?_

It must not. All the drugs they pump into his body, all the money his parents spent on this place. If Wes was going to die, he would do it in comfort and luxury, and he wouldn’t feel an ounce of pain.

Soul watches his brother’s chest struggle to rise and fall, looks at the hollowness to his cheeks and the pale pallor of his skin and wonders, _is this my fault?_

How many times growing up had Soul asked to just be number one in his parents eyes? A thousand times, he’s sure. A thousand times he wished his brother didn’t exist, or that he was nothing special. And now here he sits, dying and practically gone.

This isn’t what Soul wanted. This isn’t what Wes deserved.

His fists clench as he watches the heart monitor beep slowly, too slow. He should go to Maka right now, beg her for her blood, beg her for her help, but it’s no use. She had explained in great detail what would happen if he fed Wes her blood, and she had been perfectly clear when she said she never wanted to see Soul again.

He grits his teeth at the look of betrayal that had crossed her face. Soul had never meant to hurt her like that--honestly, he hadn’t even known Wes’ condition had gotten so bad until right before school started, and now...now his brother is dying and Maka wants nothing to do with him, and Soul will be expected to go back to school. He would be all his parents had left and he didn't want that.

Hadn’t realized until he was seventeen and bitter about everything, causing trouble and doing stupid shit that he didn’t want his parents’ attention, that he didn’t want their sad looks and the brochures and the “getaways” that always seemed to land him in a rehab center or some spa miles away that would help him center his “chi”.

“Fuck,” Soul whispers, leaning forward in his chair, eyes leaving his brother’s face and focusing on the flowers decorating the room. “I’m so sorry.”

The worst part, Soul figures, is that this isn’t something he can fix. The cancer is in Wes’ fucking _bones_ , ruining him from the marrow out and there is _nothing he can do._

* * *

 

Wes dies on a Tuesday.

He does it in his sleep, and there is a small, content smile on his face. By the time Soul and his parents get there, he is cool and stiffening and there is nothing left to say goodbye to. His parents thought he was there, and Soul thought they were there. Wes died alone, peacefully, and maybe that was for the best.

Soul doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting outside the hospital room. Wes is gone already, his parents gone too, trying to figure out funeral plans and everything that comes _after_ , but Soul can’t move, can’t help but think _I should have been there,_ can’t remember the last thing Wes said to him.

And that is the worst part. He can’t _remember_ what Wes said, can’t remember how he looked or what they spoke about the last time he saw him, but he can remember the smell of a bonfire in the middle of winter, and can taste blood on his tongue and he can remember things about Maka that he has never, ever noticed before.

He smells her then, old books and strawberries, two things that don’t sound good together but Soul can’t help but love, and then she is there, sliding down the wall beside him, phone in her hand as she settles in, staring at the room alongside him.

Soul glances at her, wonders if he looks as bad as he feels. “Why are you here?” He murmurs, searching her face for _something._ She’s pale--paler than normal, but she doesn’t look hungry-pale. Her hair lays limp, her fingers drum against her knee, and when she looks at him, she seems _so sad._

“You texted me,” she tells him, clicking her phone on to show him the message: _he’s gone._

“Oh,” Soul nods, swallowing. “I--I didn’t realize I texted you.”

Maka nods, stretching her legs out along the hallway. Because his parents were rich, Wes got one of the nicest rooms in the nicest part of the ward that had the least amount of traffic. The only other patient in the hall was a forty-five year old man.

“I’m sorry,” Maka tells him eventually, staring determinedly ahead, eyes bright. “I couldn’t have helped you, but I should have tried.”

“I’m sorry for lying,” Soul replies, picking at the fraying knee of his jeans. “I just...I just wanted him to be okay.”

Maka’s hand closes around his, but there is something mechanical to it, nothing warm.

Soul rips his hand away, suddenly angry. Blinding, bone-achingly _angry_ that she would come here, that she would apologize to him when she had been the one who turned her back on him, who made him go through this alone. He pushes to his feet, gritting his teeth as she follows, eyebrows furrowed. “Soul--”

“No,” Soul snaps, backing away from her, heart racing in his chest. “Why did you come?”

Her eyes widen, and she seems taken aback. Maka recovers quickly, but Soul is done with this, just wants to bury his brother and _leave_ , travel somewhere and never have to come back and see that look on her face, or the disappointment in his parent’s eyes.

“Kid, he--he did something to me, helped me, and I think we should talk--”

“I’m done talking to you. My brother is _dead,_ ” Soul’s voice breaks on the last word, and tears push from his eyes, fall down his face and he hates this, hates her, hates _everything._ “Just leave me alone.”

“You wouldn’t have texted me if you didn’t want to see me,” Maka argues, fingers tight around her phone. Soul watches her, his chest heaving as he cries in the middle of the goddamn hallway, arguing with this girl that he probably could have loved, had they both not been so goddamn stupid, had his brother not fucking died. Snot and tears mix on his face and Soul needs _out._

He shoves past Maka, ready to wipe his face and go back to his parents, but her hand tightens around his arm, vice-like and angry.

“Let me _go,”_ Soul breathes. It is a plea, sad and broken and it means more than just what he says.

Maka flinches away from him, mouth working, but lets him leave.

* * *

 

He doesn’t see her again. Not at the funeral home, where friends and family come and give their condolences, eyeing and praying before the large black coffin, closed because his brother had wasted away to nearly nothing. He doesn’t see her at the small gathering at the church, where they say prayers and send Wes back home, wherever the fuck that is.

He doesn’t see her at the graveyard, a miserably old one that Wes had always loved, for some stupid reason. There are so many graves here that Soul read they had to expand the graveyard by three blocks, demolishing old businesses long since gone. As far as the eye can see there are trees, grass, gravel, and stones.

Soul walks around after his brother is lowered into the ground, after the mourners begin to leave, going back to his house so they can all mourn and be miserable together. His mom had grabbed his hand as they buried Wes, her fingers tight around his own, and that had made Soul cry the most.

The air is cool, wind picking up as clouds spread across the darkening sky, ready to pour down on them. He makes his way deeper into the graveyard, where the trees are bigger, thicker. This was the original part of the graveyard, the one that has been here as long as the city, maybe longer. Most of the gravestones are indiscernible, crumbling to nothing, and then he sees the tree.

It is a massive willow tree, beautiful in its age. Soul is surprised that he’s only just seen it, but all the trees around it are tall, so they must have blocked it from view.

As he makes his way closer, he looks at the tree, something pulling taught inside him as he stares at the trunk, the old bark stained with something dark, and the small inscription, barely seen in the darkness surrounding Soul.

_here lies my soul,_ it reads, _may we meet again._

And Soul knows as his knees jarr against the ground, as his meager breakfast rises, how he knows Maka.

 

* * *

 

**PART III: A GRAVEYARD**

Maka feels ill.

Something is wrong, off in a way that she knows is not _her_. Kid has been sitting with her since she left the hospital a few days ago, only leaving her to sleep and do the basics, but Maka has barely been able to move. The words, an explanation, had been on her lips, but it hadn’t been the time. How did you tell someone you--you cared about that your friend stole your memories? How was she supposed to explain it all to him, right there after his brother had died?

She has a hard time thinking of him as one person. Sometimes, she thinks of him as Before and After. This is the colour of Soul’s skin in the summer, tanned and warm, baked brown in the sun; but Maka had only seen him in the end of summer, had only seen the fade of his tan. She thinks of the way he kissed her before, how it was effortless and incredible, and how he kisses her now, cautious but warm, toe-curling _heat_ spreading from his lips to hers.

It isn’t fair, but she does it. Maka almost wishes Kid had left her the way she was when he found her; wandering and aimless, eyes empty and sad, ready to just _die_ already. But he was better than that, had asked her if she wanted to remember or forget, and Maka had stupidly said, _forget._

Now, her chest aches in a hollow, maddening way, and Maka leans forward, curling around her knees and squeezing her eyes shut tight. “Kid--”

His hand, cool and firm, rubs circles, his voice concerned as he murmurs, “It must be Soul.”

She knows that it is Soul. Her eyes water as the feeling becomes more intense, almost as bad as when his brother had actually died, like someone had reached into her chest and _twisted_ , pulled, until there was nothing left inside.

Struggling to her feet, Maka pushes away Kid’s hand, pain lacing her voice, “I have to go to him. I have to explain.”

Maka doesn’t wait for Kid to agree or disagree, she just runs.

* * *

 

She finds him at the graveyard.

The cool air feels nice on her sweat-soaked skin, and she searches with feverish eyes for his shock of white hair before a grave, but she doesn’t see it. Maka can hear his heartbeat, sense the rush of blood under his skin, but she can’t see him.

She isn’t a werewolf--vampires can’t track people down by their scent or their heartbeat--but Maka knows how to block sounds out until she only hears one thing. It’s how she binge-watched _Orange is the New Black_ last summer during Black Star’s _Game Week_ where he did nothing but activities for an entire week straight.

So she closes her eyes and listens for the only heartbeat in the area, sets off, and hopes it is actually Soul’s.

The ground is wet with dew as she walks, the moon fat and heavy in the sky above, only the light of the stars and moon guiding her as she escapes the low lanterns lining the path, instead venturing in through the trees.

Small, misshapen grave stones litter the ground here and there, but even her enhanced sight does little to help her read them. Eventually, she sees a large, thick trunk and a flash of something white a little further off, and Maka knows she has found him.

When she steps into the clearing, she breathes a sigh of relief, the pain in her chest finally dissipating to something bearable.

“Hi,” she says when he turns slightly, large rings pressed under his eyes. Maka wants to walk further forward, collapse beside him and beg him to forgive her, but she holds her tongue.

“This is us,” Soul breathes in lieu of saying hello, knees of his pants wet as he kneels in the wet grass. He looks wrecked, exhausted. Like when Wes took his last breath, Soul also had his.

Maka remembers that look, for some reason. Remembers a boy looking at her like that, and remembers the taste of blood on her tongue.

She looks at the ground where he sits, but there is nothing marking their graves, nothing that says _we were here,_ nothing that proclaims that Soul and Maka lived and loved and died here, but she knows it the same way he does that there is one set of bones beneath the ground and that they are lonely.

They are him. Or they were.

“I didn’t know,” Maka tells him, and there is pressure beneath her ribs, stinging in her eyes. “I didn’t _remember.”_

The last time Maka had seen Soul--this Soul, not another one--he had been sitting outside a hospital room, eyes dry and empty. It was her fault that he had looked like that. Her words, _get out,_ that had that hopelessness resting on his shoulders. Her selfishness and fear that let a man die.

It doesn’t matter that becoming a vampire wouldn’t have saved Wes, she should have given Soul the option. Should have let him _try._ And now...

“What do you remember?” Maka asks, easing to the ground beside him. It feels warm despite the dew, and she leaves her hand limp between them, just in case.

Soul’s voice is hoarse, broken as he says, “Everything; nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

Maka thinks of Tsubaki’s voice, the desperation in it as she struggled to remember her own life, the happiness when she did. _It always matters._

It does matter, Maka knows. Even the things that hurt matter because they helped shape you or make you and it was how they got here and she _can’t remember_ everything, can discern what is real and not real, who this Soul is and who that Soul was, and she wants to. But only if he’ll share. Only if Soul will give it to her, because she can’t ruin him any more than she already has. Gods, she has half a mind to compel him to forget about it and leave Death City and the things rotting within it.

Pulling her knees to her chest, Maka stares at the ground and wonders if this is the first time she has been here. It doesn’t seem familiar, but who really knows.

“They thought...I think they thought I was a demon, when I came.” Soul murmurs after what feels like forever, pulling her from her thoughts. “You were a councilman’s daughter, but I didn’t know it at first. I just remember seeing you in a meadow, watching the clouds, and I wanted to be there next to you.”

Maka presses her mouth to her knees, hoping to stop the trembling in her chin. Her head hurts.

“I was only passing through, trying to--to find my brother.” Here he laughs weakly, voice breaking. “I don’t remember how long I stayed in the village, but it was long enough to realize that there was something wrong. There was a woman in charge of everything, and that was...odd, especially with how all the men seemed alright with it. I don’t remember much, but I know that you and I...you were special to me. I was going to ask you to leave with me, but your father got so scared and angry so he told the woman. She--”

Soul’s hand spasms, ripping out grass. Maka reaches across the small distance between them and closes hers around his, meeting his eyes. There is pain there, but it’s old.

“She made me watch as she...as she fed you her blood. Said she was going to show me just how far her power reached. Said that no matter where we went, no matter how far, you would always be hers.”

Maka knows what happens next. She sees it every day when she looks in the mirror, the small scar below her breast, where she stabbed herself. Where she bled out and died and came back, hungry and rabid and--

“I killed you,” Maka’s voice breaks on a sob. “Didn’t I?”

There are holes in her memory, where Kid never touched but Maka had deemed dark and dirty and terrible enough to repress.

Soul’s chest heaves for a few moments, both of them crying and remembering and wondering _why_ but Maka knows why, knows it every time she goes longer than a week without feeding, knows it the way she remembers the feel of Arachne’s heart in her hand.

_What did you make me do?_

Death is a terrible thing, but Maka only remembers it fleetingly. Death is horrible, but coming back was worse. She doesn’t know everything that happened, can’t remember the worst of it, but she knows that she killed Soul, killed Arachne (and the name sticks in her head, like it’s always been there and it probably has). Maka remembers flames because she burned her village to the ground.

“How is it here?” Maka asks after a while, voice hoarse. “We--there’s no way that we were here, in Nevada.”

Soul shrugs, turning to look at her with red-rimmed eyes. “Dunno,” he says eventually. “How can we both be here? What are the odds that we ended up meeting again?”

The answer is magic, though Maka hates the thought of it. Magic is sticky and complicated, but it explains a lot.

“I’m sorry,” Maka whispers, the words not just for everything that happened between them, but for the past and for Wes and for everything. “I’m sorry this is happening.”

Soul nods, white hair flopping over his forehead. “Me too. For tricking you.”

“I would have done the same thing,” Maka tells him, hand still limp and growing cold between them. “I’ve done worse.”

Tentatively, slowly, Soul reaches forward, twining his fingers around hers. “I forgive you,” he says, throat bobbing. The light is low, the air is cool, but Maka feels warmed down to her toes. “Can you forgive me?”

“Yeah,” Maka murmurs, squeezing his fingers. It won’t solve everything, and they have a lot to work toward, but it’s nice, being forgiven and forgiving. Refreshing. “Of course.”

There is so much unsaid between them. There are a thousand years to discuss and try to rectify, but right then, surrounded by trees and together, Maka doesn’t feel tired or nervous about the future, their future, she just feels happy, content. It feels like this is _right_ and how it is supposed to be. She will help him deal with Wes being gone, and they will talk about the before, and focus on the after later. She glances around at the greens and yellows and browns of the forest around them and thinks, _this is the colour of a new beginning._

For now, though, Maka leans toward him, pressing her lips carefully to his, and smiles.

Soul’s returning smile is small, but it lights Maka up.

* * *

 

**Five Years Later**

Maka sits anxiously beside the bed, fingers knotted together. The room is too still--too many bodies all holding their breath, waiting for the pin to drop--and it sets Maka even more on edge, her teeth clenched tightly together.

Soul lies on the bed, bone-white and still, so still, that Maka wants to leap forward and shake him, breathe life into him, but that is exactly what they are trying to do--or rather, not do.

Kid had fed him a small amount of blood, and had given him a false count before he snapped his neck, quick and clean and expressionless enough that Maka almost snapped Kid’s own neck, before she realized that this was what Soul wanted, what she wants.

Even if it scares her, Maka knows that Soul wanted it more than anything.

Five long, horrible minutes, and then Soul inhales slowly, eyes blinking open in the lazy way they usually do after a long night with little sleep. They are sharp, red, beautiful, and they land on Maka first.

“Hey,” he rasps, grimacing as his teeth begin to push through. “How’s it goin’?”

Maka chokes out a laugh and hands him the bag of blood, smiling through teary-eyes as everyone congratulates Soul on not dying before they leave the room.

He tears into the bag, spilling some on the comforter, but Maka doesn’t mind, just watches as he finishes, looking peaceful and happy, licking drops off his sharp little teeth.

“Are you alright?” Maka asks, going to him when he tugs her hand a little, pulling her from the chair and onto the bed. “Feeling like a vamp’?”

“I feel awesome,” Soul nods, leaning forward to press his face against the juncture of Maka’s neck and shoulder. “Thank you for being okay with this.”

“Of course,” Maka whispers, carding her fingers through Soul’s hair, tugging lightly to pull him back so she can meet his eyes. “I love you.”

There is still something sad in Soul’s eyes, always there but not always prevalent, and Maka hopes that the years they will have together will lessen the sadness there. His lips find hers in a hungry, fierce kiss that says everything he doesn’t have the words to say, and Maka sinks into it, happy.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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